


Sometimes

by Saki101



Series: Other Experiments [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, Other, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 09:19:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saki101/pseuds/Saki101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The original experiment occurred a long time ago.</p><p>Excerpt:  The urge simmered.  Standing, as Sherlock was, in the middle of the sitting room, the urge heated the air, pushed it against the walls.  The crack in the ceiling lengthened, grew a little wider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> Set before Season 1, this fic could be read as a prologue to the [Experiments Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/15016.html), but it would function as an AU lens which would change the perception of those stories or _Sometimes_ could be read as a stand alone AU.
> 
> Trigger warning: During the course of the series, consent issues arise and whether or not they are resolved is a matter of interpretation.

It was hard to keep up the pretence, to hold it all in. Sometimes Sherlock wanted to just let it go and glow like a dark star. That’s why it was safer for everyone if he stayed in more often than not, let his mind wander for him, saw mainly the people whom he had already bound to him, albeit loosely. They forgot sometimes, autopilot on normal. It made sense for them, of course, it was the normal world in which they lived most of the time, the times when they weren’t with Sherlock. But they fell in love with what he let them feel. Fell in love and then he had to take care of them. Sometimes he forgot how reckless it made them, what they would do for the love. Sometimes he used that recklessness. It made them strong, resourceful. How passionately they wanted to follow, not to lose sight of what he allowed them to glimpse. 

_Fragile, myopic, infuriating…endearing beings. And the best ones, ah..._

The urge simmered. Standing, as Sherlock was, in the middle of the sitting room, the urge heated the air, pushed it against the walls. The crack in the ceiling lengthened, grew a little wider.

_...were fragrant with their intuitions. The aroma of neurotransmitters meeting hormones and making unlikely connections. Electrical bonds arcing, loosening, beckoning…_

The whole experiment was a mistake, Sherlock felt on many, many days. Mycroft seemed to deal with it better, but then Mycroft hardly seemed alive sometimes, whereas Sherlock was alive, vibrantly, electrically alive and vibrantly, wildly brilliant. It was dangerous for both sides to be so strong.

There were those who thought the experiment a subterfuge, clever camouflague masking a hitherto unsuspected weakness for that scent wafting into the ether like a snare. An image of sea anemones passed through Sherlock’s mind. He took a deep breath and the windows rattled.

Such a fluke that fusion could be viable. Of the infinite combinations of matter, sentient and otherwise, this combination seemed the most unlikely, but there it was and here they were, the descendants of that first experiment. They were trapped, not by obsolete technology or cataclysms untold, but by the flesh and what it brought with it: sentiment, caring. The flesh could be cold and not only when it was dead. Humans unconnected to the experiment could be cold and dangerous, but on a different order of magnitude. Maybe that was why they were compatible after all. Still, on so many days, Sherlock thought it should never have been tried. Yet here he was, edging towards repeating the experiment himself.

Sherlock reined it in, brushed a bit of plaster off his shoulder, grabbed his coat and scarf. He went to Bart’s, checked his latest experiments, commented that he’d be a difficult man to find a flatmate for to Mike Stamford, went down to the mortuary to flog a fresh corpse and tried not to bind Molly any more closely to himself. He didn’t want her, but her adoration sweetened the air about her, made it hard to reject her unequivocally. No, he didn’t want Molly, but sometimes he did want.


End file.
